Japanese electronics company Renesas has introduced a 64bit general-purpose microprocessor (MPU) so IoT edge and gateway devices can consume less power.

As the latest addition to Renesas’ RZ/G MPU series, the RZ/G3S can meet the requirements of modern IoT devices, offering power consumption as low as 10µW in standby mode and fast startup for the Linux operating system.

The MPU comes with a PCI Express interface that enables high-speed connectivity with 5G wireless modules. Additionally, the device has enhanced security features such as tamper detection to ensure data security. These make the device suitable for IoT applications such as home gateways, smart meters and tracking devices.

“Renesas’ RZ/G has seen a steady increase in adoption in the global industrial human machine interface market,” said Daryl Khoo, Renesas vice president. “The RZ/G3S represents the next-generation products that will extend our reach to the rapidly growing 5G IoT and gigabit Wifi 7 gateway markets. Renesas has been aggressively expanding our connectivity portfolio in these markets through strategic acquisitions to offer advanced connectivity that is power efficient at the system level and enhances data utilisation.”

The RZ/G3S contains an Arm Cortex-A55 core as the main CPU with a maximum operating frequency of 1.1GHz and two Cortex-M33 cores as sub-CPUs operating at 250MHz. Users can distribute the MPU’s workloads to sub-CPUs, allowing the device to handle tasks such as receiving data from sensors, controlling system functions and managing power systems. This reduces the workload on the main CPU, resulting in fewer components, lower costs and a smaller size.

The device’s power management system is designed to reduce power consumption to less than 10µW. The MPU also supports the DDR self-refresh function which allows it to retain DRAM data, while also enabling fast Linux start-up. The fast start-up allows IoT devices, which frequently operate intermittently, to save power and extend the runtime of the battery. Moreover, the device has a standby mode that can maintain sub-CPU operation at a power level as low as 40mW, offering the flexibility to optimise power consumption based on the operating requirements of each application.

The RZ/G3S is equipped with a wide range of peripheral functions including Gigabit Ethernet, Can, USB and a PCI Express interface. By connecting with 5G communication modules, the device can achieve communication at gigahertz levels.

Similar to other RZ/G devices, the RZ/G3S has an ECC (error correction code) function in both internal memory and external DDR interface to maintain data integrity. The Verified Linux Package (VLP) based on the industrial-grade Linux software (Civil Infrastructure Platform [CIP] Linux) is available for the RZ/G3S. With VLP, developers receive over ten years of maintenance support, ensuring long-term protection against security threats. The device also provides tamper detection along with secure boot, secure debug and more. RZ/G series products are already level-two PSA certified from Arm, and Renesas has plans to include the RZ/G3S in the future.

“Our IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm inherently supports both MPUs and MCUs,” said Anders Holmberg, CTO at IAR. “By combining Renesas’ RZ/G3S MPU, which features a highly secure root of trust, with extensive security tools from IAR, developers can rapidly develop high-performance, secure IoT devices and bring them to market faster.”

Renesas has combined the RZ/G3S MPU with optimised power management ICs and clock products to develop a single-board computer gateway. The RZ/G3S’s interfaces allow the device to connect with various sensors via USB, Can, RS485, uart and I²C. It also offers wireless connectivity options to build a robust network for home automation or IoT applications. Its multicore design allows for real-time processing of data while being power efficient with its sleep mode functions.

The RZ/G3S (www.renesas.com/rzg3s) is available today.